Jeremy Corbyn looks likely to see off his challenger and in a bizarre way I’m looking forward to it.
Photograph: Jane Barlow/PA

Soon, the Labour leadership result will be announced, and it’s looking likely that, contrary to what I’d hoped, Jeremy Corbyn will win again. In a bizarre way, I’m almost looking forward to it – rip the plaster off, let it smart, get it over with. It could almost be viewed as “freeing”, as the hippies used to trill. I’ve voted for the Labour party my entire life, and never even considered voting any other way, but all that changes the moment that Corbyn gets back in, and, like many other previously lifelong Labour supporters, I become instantly politically homeless.

Of course, it might be easier just to continue obsessing – how did we fall into this stinking, slippery well? The Labour party is a 116-year-old political entity conceived to provide parliamentary representation (and therefore protection) for the most overlooked, vulnerable people in society. How did it turn into a hot-desking playpen for conceited, clueless backbench-lifers, peddling everything from pungent whiffs of antisemitism, sexism and other forms of bullying and discrimination to meaningless “neo-hipster” drivel, delivered with sub-zero political acumen?

Indeed, until now, I have been obsessing: raving, ranting, doing my best to oust Corbyn (rejoining the Labour party to vote; supporting “Saving Labour”, all that palaver). However, enough is enough. Now that it’s the eleventh hour, a different mood has landed. A new, tentative: “So, what else is out there?”

Which may surprise some people. From what I can make out, Corbyn and his supporters seem to arrogantly presume that more centrist/moderate Labour voters would always be there – whingeing, arguing, getting in the way… but still always there. However, if many people I know are anything to go by, this is simply not going to be the case. Put bluntly: as soon as Corbyn wins again, we’re off, and we’re taking our votes with us. For me, this feeling is totally new and unexpected, even rather liberating. It’s one thing to leave the Labour party, quite another not to even vote for Labour. Is this what the Corbyn-effect has unleashed: a brand new political force – what could be termed the “post-Labour free range voter”? People, like myself, who have not only spent their lives voting for Labour but have done so automatically, “tribally”, not seriously considering other options. The kind of people who’ve been completely disenfranchised by the Corbyn-effect – cast adrift, to wander, blinking, confused, into the wider political terrain.

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“Confused” being the operative word. At first anyway, it felt akin to a bird being released back into the wild, but just sitting on the ground, flapping its wings pathetically. However, that passes, and it becomes quite interesting to ask: If not Labour, who? The Tories? Behave! Ukip? Vomit. However, certain Labour politicians still seem to be plotting to form a breakaway party. (Perhaps against the odds something viable could emerge there?) Then there’s canny Tim Farron, brazenly easing the Liberal Democrats into position as the most feasible anti-Tory/anti-Brexit option. The Greens? Oh dear, now I’m feeling hopeless again – do I really have to trawl through their manifesto chuntering on about solar panels? And so on.

The point is that it matters less who I vote for than the fact that, for the first time, people like me are considering voting for anyone other than Labour. It’s as if a lifelong spell has been broken; the proverbial Rubicon crossed. Instead of automatically voting for Labour, the not inconsiderable numbers of “free range homeless” Labour voters are going to be out there, actively hunting, willing to be “wooed”, and, where the Brexit mess is concerned, more than prepared to get a little tactical. Considering there’s an awful lot of us, things could start looking very interesting, revolutionary and dangerous. Perhaps the Corbyn-faithful might have been right all along and change is coming – just not in the way they intended.

Doh! There’s more to life than cake

I’ve just checked, and I’m still not remotely bothered that The Great British Bake Off is moving from the BBC to Channel 4. May I respectfully suggest to those who’re troubled by this light entertainment development that they urgently need to get one of those things that starts with a birth, ends with a death, and has lots of stuff happening in the middle – as in, a life.

I’m not a television snob, but Bake Off really takes the, erm, biscuit. Even with Mel and Sue as presenters, and a Muslim winner (who suffered racist abuse – nice), the cake-baking extravaganza has always come across as Brexit TV, beamed straight from the Men’s Association in Stepford.

On top of that, Mary Berry seems to suffer from some bizarre “anti-feminist Tourette’s”, once saying that feminism was a “dirty word”, just “shouting at men”, when you should “persuade them gently to do things”.

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So I don’t care which channel Bake Off is on, because I won’t be watching anyway. However, just to prove that I’m not totally heartless, if anybody “can’t wait” for Channel 4 to provide their twee kitchen-bound pinny-clad domestication-fix, I’d be willing to set up one of those podcast thingies (subscription-only/satisfaction guaranteed) showing me making a cup of tea, squashing the teabag against the sides of the cup and everything.

If that’s not Bake Off enough, I could be persuaded to eat (shop-bought) biscuits and/or a folded-over Marmite sandwich, but that would cost extra.

Alternatively, perhaps this would be as good a time as any for Britain to awaken from its risible sub-Cath Kidston televised food-prep trance and realise that they can live without it after all.

Bowie would have voted for Skepta

How strange to see people getting upset that David Bowie’s Blackstar lost out to Skepta’s Konnichiwafor the Mercury prize. Not only is this offensive to Skepta (whose win deserves all of the attention), it’s also insulting to Bowie.

An artist of Bowie’s stature is beyond awards. It isn’t that the Mercury isn’t worth winning, but it’s definitely not worth griping about on Bowie’s behalf. Moreover, just because he died, it doesn’t mean that Blackstar should be awarded every gong going. Now that really would be insulting – awards relentlessly, mawkishly handed out to “dear departed David”.

This wasn’t what Bowie was about. He was a restless innovator, sometimes to his artistic detriment (some of us endured the drum’n’bass experiments). He would probably have been intrigued by Skepta’s victory and checked his album out – if he hadn’t done so already. This says far more about Bowie than posthumously patronising him with every award there is. Before it failed to win the Mercury prize, Blackstar was already an outstanding, absorbing work, and a unique talent’s final gift – to borrow a phrase from a Bowie compilation. Nothing has changed.